Nostalgia
by rubyshards
Summary: In which Seifer gets up and leaves Twilight Town one day, winds up in Hollow Bastion, and meets Leon. [Part of a LeonSeifer KHverse I'm playing with. Details in my profile.]


Seifer feels a little stranded here, lost and confused and, dammit, why is this place so _big, _so _different,_ and the creatures that keep following him, through the shadows, and the voice he thinks he keeps hearing, whispering to him, calling for him, is starting to make him a little nervous. He's been wandering these dark streets for _hours _now, and he doesn't really know where he's going.

That's never really bothered him before, though, so he doesn't let it bother him now.

The place is made all out of stone and metal and complicated details he's never even heard of before; in the distance, there's a massive castle that towers against the dark sky, standing out more than everything else around him, and that dream of his, that childish desire of his, drives him toward it. He figures it's better than just staying in this marketplace with the empty booths and the empty streets, anyway.

So he walks, with nothing of the world he's left behind with him, with nothing but this buzz in his head of pure instincts telling him to keep going forward because backward isn't going to get him anywhere and it's the only place he has to go, anyway. He walks, and the monsters follow after him, and, by the time he's out of the marketplace, he thinks he's losing his mind: the things are creeping after him, slithering along the cobblestone, and he picks up his pace a bit, trying to put it behind him.

In the confusion and the panic that's started to eat at his brain – he'd never admit to being a bit panicked, to wishing Rai and Fuu and maybe even that jackass Hayner were around to give him someone to talk to other than himself – he doesn't notice where he's going.

And it takes him a moment too long to realize that he's not the only one in this alleyway.

It's over faster than it started: a sharp push to the center of his chest and he's left staring, green eyes wide, pressed up against a wall with his hands splayed across stone beside him and his mouth gaping open in surprise, making him feel considerably less brave and knightly as he had tried to make himself feel. There's a flash of black and red and silver, and the things that have been following him, that were creeping through the streets of Twilight Town to begin with, melt away into nothing once more from a flicker of a blade and the smooth movements of the man now standing before him.

By the time he collects his senses, the man is grabbing him by the hand, his blade tossed over his shoulder, and is jerking him away from the wall none-too-gently. He snaps his wrist back, out of his reach, and takes a good step away from this man, looking him up and down.

He has choppy brown hair and pale skin and storm-cloud-blue eyes, and he's all wrapped up in shiny black leathers with blood-red belts that cross over his hips, like he's untouchable to the world. Silvery fur trims his short bomber, brushing over his sculpted chin and slender throat, and Seifer notices he's staring a moment after the man does, raising an eyebrow at him. That strange blade of his is tossed over his shoulder, held up with one hand – _two; shouldn't he hold it with two? – _and his brow is creased down a deep red scar that rips through his face, a reflection of the one on his own.

A warm crash of something like nostalgia that he can't quit explain spirals in his stomach, making him feel almost-sick-yet-not-quite when the silent man grabs his wrist once more with cool, leather-bound fingers and jerks him toward the door he can see in the distance. He doesn't put up a fight, too caught up in a dance of _something_ that shouldn't be there behind his eyes and the warm wistfulness that tosses about like a storm in his stomach to once more fight against the hand on his arm.

The door slams open when the man swiftly kicks it, and he's pulled inside hastily. With a crack the door is shut again, and there's a sharp _click _of a lock and the_ clack _of the man's weapon – _gunblade – _as he sits it down next to the door, not even sparring Seifer another glance or an explanation.

He pulls himself out of his stupor, blinks, and is following after the man as he walks through the tiny, stone, five-room house with fiery intent and a whirlwind of uncertainties burning in his mind the moment he clears his thoughts enough to grasp one of the questions.

"Who the hell are you? What do you want with me?" They seem to him to be the most important questions at the time, and he's sure there are probably at least twenty better questions he could have asked, but they're the only ones that managed to stick in his thoughts. He catches the taller man's arm when he ignores his voice, and asks the questions again, jerking on the too-small-to-fit-his-size wrist and getting his attention, icy glare and all, once more.

He tries to ignore the man's warm, fluttering pulse beneath his fingertips, and pushes back the heat that rises up on his chest for _some _damned reason, and glares up at the man, cursing the few inches he has over him.

"Let go."

"Answer my questions. I have a right to know who the hell you are and if you're kidnapping me or something idiotic like that." The man watches him for a moment, jerks his hand from his grasp, and continues his path across the stone tiled floor, down a dark hallway, and into a room in the back. Seifer doesn't expect to get an answer, and he opens his mouth to scream out his questions again at the stubborn asshole of a brunette, but the man beats him to it.

"I'm not _kidnapping _you." He says, before falling quiet once more, his silence filled with a rustling in the back room and Seifer glares at the doorway the man went through, huffing to himself and taking chase into the room.

He steps in, finds himself standing in what he assumes to be the brunette's bedroom, and flushes a light red when he sees the man slip off his leather bomber jacket and toss it onto a chair nearby, glaring at it in what Seifer can only assume is disgust (although he can't really tell with the look of constant apathy this guy has on his face).

"Then what the hell do you _want?_" The man stops rummaging through his closet for a different shirt and looks up at Seifer with dark, storm-blue eyes, and Seifer shivers and feels like the man is staring straight through him, seeing something he doesn't even know is there.

"Aerith told me to rescue you." His answer is stiff and annoyed and curt, and Seifer wonders absently who "Aerith" might be, and why he or she would want him to be rescued, and—

"I didn't _need _rescuing." He retorts, arms crossing over his navy blue vest and emerald eyes locking with dark blue in defiance. The man gives him a strange little look, a flicker of something like nostalgia and remembrance in his eyes, but it's gone the moment Seifer thinks he sees it, so he doesn't may much attention to it.

The man goes back to his rummaging, pulling out an old, white t-shirt to replace the sweat soaked tank top he's already wearing. An odd, feline-like grin is on his lips, faint and barely there, and Seifer glares at the man even more at his apparent amusement, because he doesn't find _anything _amusing about this situation _at all_.

"Really?" The man's voice is laced with an underlying purr of laughter, and Seifer thinks that's strange, because this man doesn't seem like he'd laugh at all, but he's too angry to care about not-really-there laughter and memories that he doesn't remember ever taking place buzzing behind his thoughts.

"Yes. I can fend for myself." The man watches him for a moment longer, before standing up straight, stripping off his tank top and pulling on the t-shirt. It drapes around his muscular form, pooling over the edge of black leather and contrasting with the dried-blood-red belts and the coal-black of his thighs. Seifer watches the edge where it all contrasts for a moment before he brings his gaze back to the man's face, embarrassed from his staring.

"Of course." Seifer glare-pouts at the man and he simply cat-smiles at him again, walking past him and back out into the living-room-yet-not front room, his boots clopping on the ground in a steady beat that Seifer can feel somewhere in him. He wonders why he thinks the sound isn't quite right, this dull clop of leather on stone, and it takes him a moment to figure out that the _clop _should be more of a _click _of heels on metal.

Although he has no idea in _hell _why he thinks that.

"Asshole." He's being childish and stupid but this man is infuriating, and he doesn't care if he's complaining-almost-whining at the man for his words. He paces out into the living room where the man is now sitting on a midnight-black couch (_everything about this guy is black, black, black)_, his blade spread on his lap, pretty and deadly and glittering in the light. Seifer comes up to where he's sitting, watching him closely and narrowing his eyes at him.

He thinks of yelling at the man some more, but he loses his train of thought when the man looks up at him through choppy, dark coffee-brown hair and fixes that intense ice-laced gaze on his form once more. The man looks him up and down, like a predator sizing up its prey, and Seifer tenses up and clenches his fists at his sides. Another flicker of something almost like nostalgia sweeps through his eyes, and he gives Seifer a little frown.

"Leon." He tilts his head, introducing himself, and Seifer frowns right back at him.

"And I'm Seifer." The brunette – _Leon _– nods slowly to himself, before pointing back down the hallway they just came from.

"The guest room is across from mine." That's all he says before he goes back to the blade on his lap, and Seifer stands before him, waiting for some kind of explanation or _something _other than the silence this man is giving him. He figures he's not going to get an answer after he stands there for what feels like forever, simply watching this man run an old, black cloth over the silver weapon, and he snarls to himself and turns on his heel and stomps toward the room that was given to him, angry and confused all at once.

He pushes his way into the room, slams the door shut as loud as he can just in spite of Leon, and tosses himself on the bed, sprawling on his back and staring at the gray, stone ceiling, tracing the cracks there and falling asleep to a whisper of a voice and a thrum of nostalgia and a strange feeling that he's finally found something better than that place he once called "home."


End file.
